Summer Projects
by Sheankelor
Summary: Hunting the undead and rogue dark beings fall to the ones who have the power and the knowledge to do so. Albus, Tom, and Severus are such a team, and they know the importance of correct information especially when dealing with the undead.


_AN: This was born from an information hunt by Schattengestalt. She was looking up information on Doppelgänger for me and found out that you defeat a zombie in a way I had never heard of before. She told me "If you want to beat a zombie, you have to stare them in the eyes as if you want to look at their souls. Since they don't have souls they crumble to dust." The conversation that followed created the basis for the following tale._

 _I do not normally discuss the Undead, so take this as done. There will be_ _ **no**_ _sequel written by me._

 _This is not beta'ed. If you see a mistake that is bothering you, please kindly let me know. Nevermind - SuNoYo handled it for me - if you see something else, let me know, please._

 _Summer Projects_

"You _have got_ to be kidding me." Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts, glared at the stack of papers, shaking his head. "They are just _asking_ to be killed, that is all there is to that."

"Most people do not ask to be killed." Tom Riddle, Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor of Hogwarts, raised an eyebrow at the glare he received from Snape.

Albus Dumbledore shook his head and in his best Headmaster's voice joined in. "They just do not think, my dear boy, and that tends to end up with the dead."

"Then they walk around and we are called in to handle them." Tom leaned forward and tapped the edge of the papers that Severus was holding. "How are they asking to be killed?"

Laying the pages onto the table top, Severus looked at his companions. These two men could barely stand talking to each other most of the time. Severus was surprised to learn that Albus – code named Lemon Drop - had actually taken it upon himself to train up Voldemort - Tom - in how to do their side occupation; their main occupation if you asked the Ministry. The two of them had taken him under their wing while he was still in school, named him Bat, and added him to their little group of specialized hunters. The Ministry learned that they did _not_ hunt alone, even if it left Hogwarts down two professors and one Headmaster for weeks at a time; hunting the undead was dangerous business.

"Well, Severus? What amazes you, who thinks that everyone is a dunderhead anyway?" Albus sipped his tea, waiting for an answer.

"They think that if you shoot a zombie in the head with a shotgun, you will kill it." Severus hid his grin at Albus' slight shudder and the widening of Tom's eyes. "They do not seem to understand it is an animated dead body, dragging itself around to do the bidding of whatever necromancer opted to disturb its eternal slumber."

"Yes, I see what you mean. You blow off the things face, half its head, its entire head," Tom shrugged lightly. "it doesn't matter. The magic animating it is still at work and the parts are going to keep coming after you or doing what they were instructed to do."

Albus stroked his beard lightly, doing his best not to think about the undead fleshy bits that had clung to the strands at one time or another. "If they blow off the creature's face, you make it practically impossible to deal with the creature. You have to spend your time hunting down the necromancer and dispose of them."

Severus remembered a case like that had happened last summer. Tom and Albus had scoured the entire English countryside hunting down the maker of a small cemetery's worth of zombies which she had set onto the nearby villages. Since he was the fastest with a needle and thread, he was left to deal with the walkers. The time consuming hunt had worn down the two older men's summer truce, and Severus was very grateful when they found the Haitian witch in a London shack. Not because tracking down the zombies' resting places was tedious, nor that filling their mouths with rock salt and sewing them shut was terrifying without back up. No, it was because Albus and Tom used him as a go between for the last month of the hunt since they refused to talk to one another.

"I wonder if they would attempt to do the same to a horde of Inferi?" Tom filled his own tea cup and looked between his two partners.

"Who wrote the paper on how to handle them?" Albus knew that Severus planned on researching other ways of dealing with zombies after their first and last encounter.

"Tom, as they wouldn't know an Inferi from a zombie, they would end up a sticky mess in the end." Severus tipped his head to one side as he considered this. "Then again, they would be a sticky mess if they were zombies." Turning his head towards Albus, he addressed his question. " A group of Undead Hunters in the Americas, a new group. I don't think they are going to be around long as they are shaky on the appropriate killing methods of not only zombies, but hags, werewolves, and vampires. They are under the illusion that zombies need their brain stem to function."

"Maybe they have a new type of zombie there?" At Severus and Tom shared doubtful looks, Albus' contemplative expression gave away to a small frown. "But they should still know how to disable and kill a traditional zombie."

Severus shook his head. "New type or not, it doesn't matter one way or another. The brain stem is so well protected by the skull, not to mention being so low, that they could take off most of the cranium and face and still not stop it. Then they have no alternative but to trying to decapitate it or find its creator. They won't be around long enough to learn this lesson though."

"We really need to change our Ministry registration category. I know we specialize in the undead, but we handle so many other rogue dark beings." Tom pushed a tea cup towards Severus. "That aside, you are right, if they have no idea how to handle those things, they aren't going to survive long."

Albus waved the current topic aside. "You didn't find anything useful? We are left with the sleeping-salt-sew-candle method or the 'stare in your eyes until you realize you have no soul and you dust' method."

"Nothing, well besides fire which works well against the undead until someone gets the bright idea to protect them from it."

Sighing, Albus pushed a list towards the centre of the table. "Then it is a good thing we are trained Legilimens as that speeds up the staring method."

Tom and Severus blanched slightly before looking at the list.

"Whoever is letting these Haitian Wizards in needs to stop!" Tom glared at the three zombie attacks listed. "Do we at least know if they are related incidents?"

Albus shook his head. "No, we don't know."

"Which means we treat them as separate cases until proven otherwise." Severus scanned down their summer projects list as Albus liked to call their assigned Ministry's cases. "We have a rogue werewolf on the Isle of Man, and a hag near the Forest of Dean. Which one do we start with?"

"We should go dust the zombies and then handles the other two jobs." Tom waited for Albus to object.

Albus frowned. "They are people's relatives, Tom. It's not their fault that they were pulled from their graves."

"But if we don't, then the necromancer can come along and free the creatures from our bindings and set them loose again. This way their relatives know that their ancestors aren't hunting and hurting against their will." Brown eyes met blue and Tom saw this time his argument was making a dent. "If we use Legilimency on them, we might be able to pull out of their mushy thoughts who cursed them."

Closing his eyes, Albus sighed. "Then we try it." He opened his eyes and met his partners' gazes. "We cannot afford another summer like the last."

Mutual understanding passed between the three. They all knew that this list was just the beginning.

Eventually, Severus broke eye contact and dragged out their map. "All three attacks happened between Edinburgh and Glasgow."

Tea cups floated away as the three top Hunters of the British Ministry got to work.


End file.
